Called the Nex, it's a device with a bezel-less display and a pop-out selfie camera, and it's these new features that have it gaining headlines the world over.

The Vivo Nex is great for selfies at big events thansk to its wide-angle selfie cameraLee Bell

Not many will have heard of Vivo. As an Asian only brand (for now), it’s huge in China, but yet to gain some ground over in the west. However, with this new phone, I can imagine that’s all about to change.

Vivo was keen to let me try out the Nex for the week, before it even goes on sale in Asia, so I could test out the new tech ahead of launch. So my guess is that they’re planning a global push very soon. Nevertheless, I took it along with me to the World Cup in Moscow to see how well it fared in the real-world environments of such a big event. What better backdrop to see if the phone can perform well under pressure?

Here are my first impressions after playing around with it...

Display

First off, I’ve got to talk about the Nex’s display before anything else, for obvious reasons.

The Vivo Nex screen is just gloriousLee Bell

The new handset is special because it’s unlike any other I’ve seen lately. It boasts a completely bezel-free, notch-less display alongside a pop-out selfie camera. Yes, it sure touts some impressive tech.

Take for instance the size of the screen. It’s a 6.59in FHD+ Super AMOLED display that has such a tiny bezel that it stretches to each edge of the phone without any disruptions from cameras or buttons. And what that means is, there's no notch in sight.

The impressive super wide display is ideal for live sports photographyLee Bell

During my hands-on time, I remained in love the display on the Vivo Nex, even during the super brightly lit grounds of Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium.

And to ensure none of the phone's screen real estate is disturbed, there's an 8MP front-facing camera hidden within the body of the phone, which pops up when it's ready to be used. More about this in the camera section, though.

It is worth mentioning though that some of the Vivo Nex marketing will tell you its screen is completely bezel-less. And while it isn’t interrupted by any buttons or notches, there’s a slim chin towards the bottom where the screen doesn’t touch the end of the phone. It’s hardly noticeable, but it means it’s not 100 per cents bezel-less.

In terms of general operation, text and images look super sharp and touch operations are smooth on pages and apps, too. I was surprised how well it took in everything that was going on in the stadium, also. A really impressive bit of kit.

Design

The Nex's design sets the phone apart from any other device currently on the market, not only because of its display.

Overall, I'm a massive fan of the Nex's designLee Bell

Overall, it's a very solid bit of kit which feels sturdy in the hand, if not a little heavy. At 199g, it’s definitely not the lightest smartphone out there, but with a screen of such a size that's hardly surprising.

The back of the Nex is slightly curved, making it more comfortable to holdLee Bell

Another rather new bit of technology is the fingerprint scanner, which is buried under the screen, like on the Honor 10. Although in my experience it didn’t seem to work quite as well as a physical fingerprint scanner, and sometimes took a few attempts in order for it to register my thumb and unlock the screen.

The finger print scanner doesn't work as well as the physical kind, in my experienceLee Bell

As for the back, it’s made of glass, which curves nicely to fit the contours of your hand, making it comfortable to hold. I’m not sure if it boasts Gorilla Glass protection or not, either, but it feels really nice in the hand, especially for a phone of this size.

Performance

On the inside, the Vivo Nex packs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor alongside a pretty big 8GB RAM as well as an Adreno 630 GPU.

While I wasn't able to test it for a long period during my hands-on, I found there to be no delays or anything like that, even when playing and recording 4K video.

The Vivo Nex runs on software powered by Google's Android 8.1 Oreo mobile operating system, although it's hard to recognize it's Android at all due to the phone's OS only being "based" on the platform. It takes on its own completely different design, and due to where it’s come from there’s still a lot of Chinese symbols and text scattered around that haven’t been translated through the OS. Saying that, it’s nice and clear and is a little reminiscent of iOS.

The Nex smartphone also boasts a 4,000mAh battery, which we're guessing is so big as it needs to power that huge screen. I wasn’t equipped with a SIM card during my hands-on experience so can't give a decent estimate of how long the battery would last day to day with 4G enabled, but during my time with it over the day the battery life barely moved - probably around 5-8 percent. That's with brightness on full and taking pictures constantly over a four hour period.

For storage, you can expect a pretty decent 256GB, which will definitely be adequate for all your selfie-taking and high-res video recording needs.

Camera

In terms of snappers, on the back, there's a dual camera set-up, with a 12MP and 5MP primary and secondary snapper. In Chinese phone-maker style, Vivo claims there's plenty of photo-taking AI tech here for better photo quality over rivals.

The rear facign cam is a dual set up as you'd find on most Chinese firms' phones these daysLee Bell

Because I was testing out the phone at the ceremony in Russia, which doesn't really get properly dark during the summer thanks to its position in the world, I wasn't able to test the performance of the camera in low-light conditions while at the game.

However, I found the still images taken with the rear-facing camera were generally super impressive, appearing crisp, clear, and full of natural color, and were taken super-fast. Autofocus is swift, and the camera was able to focus on the background and foreground aspects of an image instantly.

The selfie camera pops up as soon as you select the option to take a forward facing shotLee Bell

One of the most interesting new camera features is the appearing and disappearing selfie camera. It sounds like a bit of a gimmick but it actually works super well. It rises quite slowly, adding a second or so on to the time it takes to prepare the seflie cam for a shit, but it’s definitely worth it for the edge to edge screen.

Images from both cameras appeared super clean with a great color representation. I am definitely looking forward to testing this out further in a full-on review.

Availability

While Vivo is still considered somewhat of a newcomer to the smartphone market, it's gone all out on the tech on the Nex, giving it a never-ending list of innovative features and I am therefore super impressed by it, also because they all work quite well together.

In terms of cost, the Nex is yet to be confirmed as it’s only just been unveiled, but you can expect it to retail in the region of about £700-800, similar to the Huawei P20 Pro.

So far, Vivo hasn't confirmed when we are likely to see device hit markets outside Asia, but you can expect with some crazy tech like this, you'll see it shipping over here in the next few months.

Lee is a journalist specializing in health tech and fitness innovation. Follow him on Twitter, see what he's up to on Instagram, or read more of his articles at his Forbes profile page.

My journalism career kick-started in the technology industry at The INQUIRER in 2012, where I soon found my voice in the innovations space, focusing on the latest advances in consumer tech and their social impact. These days, I’m a freelance writer and editor, specializing ...